


Ink and ice cream

by Bitterblue



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 03:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4004725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue/pseuds/Bitterblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delphine is a magical tattoo artist. Cosima shouldn't have been able to find the shop in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ink and ice cream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thosefarplaces](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thosefarplaces/gifts).



It's half an hour to closing time, the empty evening stretching around her as she fills it with sketches and ideas, when the little bell on the door  _ting_ s. Delphine looks up in surprise to see a pretty young woman step into the shop.

"Hey," says the woman, "do you do walk-ins?"

The easy answer is  _no_ , and she almost says it. She works by appointment only, and you have to know someone to get in contact for the appointment in the first place. She doesn't  _do_  walk-ins because people shouldn't be able to just  _walk in_  to the shop. So, instead:

" _Non_ , but I could find an appointment time for you?"

The woman smiles, a broad grin that tugs at the corners of Delphine's mouth in answer. "Yeah, okay."

She pulls out her calendar and the woman pulls out her phone. They settle on a few days from now for a consult, and ink a week later. The woman smiles the whole time, and Delphine scribbles her name into the book as she leaves, the bell  _ting_ ing after her.  _Cosima_.

Delphine doesn't get much done for the rest of the evening, half daydreaming about her baffling, good-looking, bafflingly good-looking new client and half reprimanding herself for the whole business.

Locking up that night, Delphine catches her reflection in the window, and blushes at the sight of bright pink roses crawling up her neck.

* * *

 

If Cosima has noticed that Delphine's tattoos stubbornly refuse to stay where they were put, she doesn't comment on it—though she has, Delphine thinks, noticed. A distracted moment of attention drawn elsewhere by shifting ink, a lapse in the flow of their conversation while Cosima tries not to look too closely at bare arms, a briefly confused furrow of her brow; these things give it away, and confirm what Delphine had suspected to begin with: there is no way Cosima should have wandered into her shop. She ought to be troubled by it—maybe the charms on the shop front are wearing out, maybe she'll be flooded with nonmagical clients wanting anchors and half-naked ladies who will not like it very much when the ladies then remove their clothing altogether or transform into dragons—but Cosima is, in herself, so distracting that Delphine doesn't mind a bit.

Consults usually take fifteen or twenty minutes: a discussion of topics, ideas, colours, line weights, maybe a few sketches. They had scheduled for just before Delphine's lunch break, and somehow the consult has turned into lunch at a soup and sandwich place across the street. The booth they've commandeered in the back corner of the place is small, knees pressed together as Delphine sketches around mouthfuls of soup.

Cosima spends most of lunch telling Delphine about her classes, about epigenetics and gene manipulation and experimental design. She's getting ready to take her general exams to move on to the real weight of her Ph.D. Her hands flutter through the space between them as she speaks, occasionally landing on Delphine herself. Cosima is not the only one distracted by skin by the end of lunch.

As they step into the street, Cosima touches her elbow, more deliberately than before, and smiles. "It's really great to find someone who gets it. Who gets  _me_." Under her fingers, roses and peonies bloom and curling vines begin to twist themselves into new shapes. "This is going to be the best ink ever. I'll see you next week!"

Delphine blushes red to match the flowers growing down her arms when she washes up before her next client and finds a little  _D + C_  inside of a heart on her bicep. Then she resolves to wear a cardigan.

* * *

 

It's bright outside the day of Cosima's appointment, light filtering through the frosted glass windows of the shop. Delphine tries not to smile too much, and then tries not to think about not smiling too much. She fails on both counts.

" _Bonjour_ , Cosima!" she says instead, waving a little. "I'm ready if you are, come on back."

She has everything laid out on the table next to the tattoo bench, a pile of sketches and a glass of water next to an empty tray of pigment cups and the needles, still in their sterile packaging. Cosima settles into the chair and lays her arm across the bench, her smile a little nervous.

"Are those the design?"

Delphine offers her the sketches, a series of experiments with a conch design. Cosima's request had been vague ("Something with Fibonacci? Dude, you're the artist."), but she'd found herself drawn to the spiral shell shape again and again. While Delphine's typical clients come because they know the ink will form new patterns after she's done, with Cosima it feels important to get it right the first time. Ordinary skin will possibly not let the tattoo move. She isn't sure. She's never tried to tattoo an ordinary person before.

_Nothing about Cosima is_  ordinary, Delphine thinks. She turns away to hide her blush, grabbing bottles of ink from her cart, and is very glad about the long sleeves she'd worn after all.

"I  _love_  this." Cosima's voice interrupts the internal tumble of arguments Delphine is having. She relaxes a little in her seat, and touches the drawing.

"Good, I'm glad—that one is my favourite, too. So you're wanting to put it on your forearm, here?" She takes Cosima's hand, and gently turns her arm, touching the spot with her free hand. Cosima nods. It might be a cloud passing overhead, briefly darkening the space, but Delphine could swear she's blushing. She feels like she hasn't really stopped, herself, and drops both of her hands to her lap. " _Bon_. So. I'll free-hand it, I think."

She pulls gloves from the box at her elbow and carefully copies the sketch onto Cosima's skin in sharpie, the familiarity of work making it easier. Concentrate on skin and shape, ignore dark, sparkling eyes behind pretty glasses. When they're both satisfied with the drawing, she offers bottles of ink.

"I know you originally said just black, but maybe a little colour would be good? I think the deep purple faded into the black would work really well." Cosima smiles. Delphine smiles, too.

"I'd like that, yeah."

Delphine finishes her set-up quickly, prepping inks, the gun, Cosima's arm. She pulls on fresh gloves and they begin.

Some part of her has thought up until now that tattooing nonmagical skin would somehow feel different, but it moves the same under the pressure of her tattoo gun and Cosima winces in all the same places as Delphine crosses tendon closer to her wrist. It's quick work, a design this small. She's used to more talkative clients, but with one arm restrained it's like Cosima doesn't know how to speak; Delphine's usual shop talk is about who recently got caught doing magic in public or which stockist has the best potion ingredients for a project, and she finds herself unsure what to offer up as a distraction for this particular client. So, instead, she lets the instrumental music usually playing in the background of the shop wash over her as she lays ink into place and tries to work out how to talk Cosima into seeing her again.

" _Finis_ ," she says, and Cosima clenches and unclenches her fist, testing out the feel of her arm.

"It looks  _amazing_."

"I'm glad you're happy with it. That's important to me!" She gently wipes the fresh tattoo clean, then wraps it in cling film, taping around forearm and wrist to keep it in place. "You have other tattoos—you're familiar with the aftercare?"

"Yeah, wash in a few hours, ointment for a few days, keep it wrapped if I'm exposed to biohazards in the lab, I'm on it." Cosima shifts and grabs her bag, rifling through it for her wallet. "How much?"

Delphine doesn't even think, just smiles. "This one is on me."

Cosima raises her eyebrows, a startled laugh escaping her. "Um, dude, I think it's on  _me_."

They're both laughing now, and Delphine pulls her gloves off, throwing them in the biohazard bin. "I'm serious," she says, "I don't mind."

"That's not very good business practice," Cosima starts, and then half frowns, tilting her head. "When did you get knuckle tats? I don't remember those last week." Delphine looks down at her hands, where a neat row of hearts have appeared on her fingers as if they had always been there. She blushes and folds her hands in her lap.

"So I'm pretty sure I just saw your tattoos move," Cosima offers when Delphine doesn't answer.

"That would be absurd, Cosima."

"Yeah, just about as absurd as you not letting me pay you for this. Only both of those things seem to be happening, so...like...I want to repay you, and also I'm  _hungry_  now, and  _also_  also I want to know what's going on. So. I mean. I could buy you lunch?"

The easy answer is  _no_.

Instead, Delphine watches roses bloom across the backs of her hands (and knows Cosima is watching, too), sighs, and looks up at the least ordinary woman she's ever met with an irrepressible smile.

"You know what? I'm starving. I'd kill for an ice cream."


End file.
